On the Limitations of Superpowers

Call it rage, call it fear, does it matter?
It’s a quiet shriekhowl corked inside
a good person trying to help,
trying to float on darkness
flickering with starlight
(ancient memories
of light and will
vibrating
on edge
in
octaves
and sawtooth
chords tuned sour,
memories of
dissonance wrapped in
thin silk to quiet their
thousand unnatural shocks).
If this was the ocean’s surface,
the stars would dance and flicker, shifting
in place. If this was a bed, hands reach out
as if what is already there isn’t
enough. As if there isn’t enough
love, pain, or sense of direction,
or whatever it takes to
make that shift from one place,
one state of being,
to another.
If this was
magic,
if
this was
super strength,
I would still need
to be able to
break or charm something not
me, other than what I love,
other than love. If I could fly
would I still float above the ocean,
tethered like a buoy over hidden depths
and clefts in which shine pale oblique lights
of hunger and horror and beauty
made fey and strange? This is it,
isn’t it? What’s the point
of leaping over
tall sky scrapers
if I can’t
hurdle
you?
If I
can’t see you
in the shadows,
if I can’t even
say who you are aloud?
Try to remember. Try to
forget. The body remembers.
Try to forget. Try to remember.
A fist wrapped around a wrist as thick as
a thumb. I’m numb. My fingers are full of
bones and thorns. Bones break. The thorns fracture
and scatter like an invasive
species, and grow like dragon’s teeth.
Even a superhero
with lightning in their hands
is thwarted. Even
superheroes
shooting webs
are mute
(grasp/
release)
(connection/
severed) their tale
retold, repainted,
and sanitized. What’s safe
to say? The secret gesture
that says “me, too,” and we both know
what is meant when our hands flip and point
to a heart caged in bones, like all the rest.